A SENIOR cabin crew member cost British Airways £100,000 by accidentally activating the emergency slide, sparking an agonising flight delay.
The embarrassing bungle by the inflight lead came ahead of take-off from Montreal in Canada to London Heathrow.
A snap shared with The Sun shows Flight BA94 stranded on the tarmac on Saturday morning, with the rubber chute deployed from the rear doors.
An emergency slide deploys automatically when an aircraft door is opened while the slide system is set to the “armed”, or automatic, position.
Bosses were baffled by the expensive gaffe due to the hours of training given to BA crew to prevent such disasters.
The accident sparked a 3 hour, 15 minute delay before the passengers take-off for the UK on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, arriving on Saturday at 12.30pm.
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In January, another bungling crew member activated the emergency slide by mistake.
Travellers waiting to board a British Airways jet from London Heathrow to Brussels had their flight cancelled by the error.
Last year, The Sun told how a BA Captain was dramatically grounded seconds before take-off from Heathrow to Bucharest after he activated his jet’s emergency slide – costing the airline another £100,000 and sparking long delays.
The experienced £160,000-a-year pilot was taken off flying duties after leaving colleagues and passengers stunned with his “inexplicable blunder”.
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It was one of multiple flights recently delayed or cancelled due to hapless crew wrongly deploying the emergency slide.
We told how a crew boss activated the rubber tube in error.
The inflight manager bungled in front of startled passengers after Flight BA199 from London arrived in Mumbai.
He was showing a new starter the procedure for deploying the chute in an emergency – but accidentally sent the inflatable slide careering to the ground.
He was flown home as a passenger and banned from operating on further flights.
A similar mishap occurred when a British Airways cabin crew member accidentally activated an emergency slide as her plane was pushing back from the stand at Heathrow, delaying passengers for more than five hours.
The flight attendant, who was on her debut flight aboard an Airbus A350, mistakenly opened an emergency door while the aircraft was preparing to taxi for its scheduled flight to Austin, Texas.
And a year ago a bungling steward had a first day to forget when he activated the emergency slide as his plane taxied to the runway.
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He was on his debut flight on a Boeing 777 and accidentally opened an emergency door after push-back from the stand at Heathrow before take-off to Nigeria.
Last night, BA told The Sun of the Montreal error: “We have apologised to customers for the delay to their journey. Our teams worked hard to get them on their way as quickly as possible.”